topic Re: Spam filters registering clicks? in Product Discussionshttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218952#M161241
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>There are several posts here on Marketo about this issue, and my firm has been digging into it a lot over the last few days. The short answer is that yes, this does indeed happen - spam filters (like Barracuda) / bots / junk mail algorithms do indeed click on links in emails (<A href="http://https//wordtothewise.com/2013/07/barracuda-filters-clicking-all-links/">see this interesting blog post from 2013</A> regarding the issue - Barracuda calls this "multilevel intent analysis"). The spam filter is looking for redirection or malware or something like that. There isn't a whole ton that we marketers can do about it, though. Here is what we've done and found:</P><UL><LI>First thing we did was download the entire Marketo activity log using the API, put it in a database, and started dissecting the "Click Email" event types. We also sat down with the system administrator here to review some of this data. In short: there is nothing in the User Agent, Platform, Device, etc. that will help spot these.</LI><LI>Then we started looking at the timing: what about people who click before they open? What about people who click really quickly after the "Send Email" activity is logged? Well...the "Send Email" event <A _jive_internal="true" href="https://nation.marketo.com/thread/29774">isn't indicative of when, exactly, the email leaves Marketo's servers</A>, so that's not really accurate - you can't spot bots based on that.</LI><LI>The best way we've found right now is to include a one-pixel picture / link on the email - invisible to just about everyone (<A _jive_internal="true" href="https://nation.marketo.com/ideas/7095">as suggested here</A>). Anything that clicks on such a tiny little pixel you can consider a bot. True; someone might not load images and see a box, but most people won't see it at all.</LI><LI>Another possibility: see if you have a bunch of <A _jive_internal="true" href="https://nation.marketo.com/thread/29454">clicks that all happen at the same time</A> (or people clicking every link in an email, every week - would a real person really need to read your Privacy Policy week-in and week-out?). Those are probably bots...but I personally would want to download the data into a real database before attempting this kind of query.</LI><LI>One more (really complex) possibility: when we went to our sysadmin (the guy who runs our own company's Barracuda machine) about a lot of these issues, he started to "ping" some of the IP addresses included in the suspicious "Click Link In Email" activities. One or more of them shot back a response indicating that it was a Barracuda box. If you are really, super-duper concerned with this problem, it should be possible to download all Marketo activities via the API and write some custom script / code to extract the IP addresses from the Marketo "Click Email" events and then to periodically ping all these servers to see if you can get them to self-identify as a spam filter (parse the text-strings of the responses for incriminating evidence).</LI></UL><P></P><P>We have not done this last thing, as our "one-pixel" solution has indicated (at least over the last two weeks) that it's likely not a major issue. Perhaps some day, when our organization has unlimited resources (heh), we will pursue this last option, but the reality is that we have a lot going on and better things to do to add more value to our marketing efforts.</P><P></P><P>I would also like the data to exist in a perfect world - one where our Users validate our TRON Data Discs and we can take down the evil Master Control Programs while we're on our light-cycles on the grid - but that gleaming world of perfect, neon data does not exist. For most of us, I would guess this statistical aberration will not significantly affect our analysis of content effectiveness.</P><P></P><P>Hope this helps.</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 22 Jan 2016 20:14:06 GMTAnonymous2016-01-22T20:14:06ZSpam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218951#M161240
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY>Has there been any problems with spam filters scanning emails and registering clicks as they follow the links in the email? &nbsp;We are getting false positives on our email clicks.</BODY></HTML>Tue, 20 May 2014 15:02:05 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218951#M161240Anonymous2014-05-20T15:02:05ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218952#M161241
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>There are several posts here on Marketo about this issue, and my firm has been digging into it a lot over the last few days. The short answer is that yes, this does indeed happen - spam filters (like Barracuda) / bots / junk mail algorithms do indeed click on links in emails (<A href="http://https//wordtothewise.com/2013/07/barracuda-filters-clicking-all-links/">see this interesting blog post from 2013</A> regarding the issue - Barracuda calls this "multilevel intent analysis"). The spam filter is looking for redirection or malware or something like that. There isn't a whole ton that we marketers can do about it, though. Here is what we've done and found:</P><UL><LI>First thing we did was download the entire Marketo activity log using the API, put it in a database, and started dissecting the "Click Email" event types. We also sat down with the system administrator here to review some of this data. In short: there is nothing in the User Agent, Platform, Device, etc. that will help spot these.</LI><LI>Then we started looking at the timing: what about people who click before they open? What about people who click really quickly after the "Send Email" activity is logged? Well...the "Send Email" event <A _jive_internal="true" href="https://nation.marketo.com/thread/29774">isn't indicative of when, exactly, the email leaves Marketo's servers</A>, so that's not really accurate - you can't spot bots based on that.</LI><LI>The best way we've found right now is to include a one-pixel picture / link on the email - invisible to just about everyone (<A _jive_internal="true" href="https://nation.marketo.com/ideas/7095">as suggested here</A>). Anything that clicks on such a tiny little pixel you can consider a bot. True; someone might not load images and see a box, but most people won't see it at all.</LI><LI>Another possibility: see if you have a bunch of <A _jive_internal="true" href="https://nation.marketo.com/thread/29454">clicks that all happen at the same time</A> (or people clicking every link in an email, every week - would a real person really need to read your Privacy Policy week-in and week-out?). Those are probably bots...but I personally would want to download the data into a real database before attempting this kind of query.</LI><LI>One more (really complex) possibility: when we went to our sysadmin (the guy who runs our own company's Barracuda machine) about a lot of these issues, he started to "ping" some of the IP addresses included in the suspicious "Click Link In Email" activities. One or more of them shot back a response indicating that it was a Barracuda box. If you are really, super-duper concerned with this problem, it should be possible to download all Marketo activities via the API and write some custom script / code to extract the IP addresses from the Marketo "Click Email" events and then to periodically ping all these servers to see if you can get them to self-identify as a spam filter (parse the text-strings of the responses for incriminating evidence).</LI></UL><P></P><P>We have not done this last thing, as our "one-pixel" solution has indicated (at least over the last two weeks) that it's likely not a major issue. Perhaps some day, when our organization has unlimited resources (heh), we will pursue this last option, but the reality is that we have a lot going on and better things to do to add more value to our marketing efforts.</P><P></P><P>I would also like the data to exist in a perfect world - one where our Users validate our TRON Data Discs and we can take down the evil Master Control Programs while we're on our light-cycles on the grid - but that gleaming world of perfect, neon data does not exist. For most of us, I would guess this statistical aberration will not significantly affect our analysis of content effectiveness.</P><P></P><P>Hope this helps.</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 22 Jan 2016 20:14:06 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218952#M161241Anonymous2016-01-22T20:14:06ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218953#M161242
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Thanks for the information, Matt. For us, it appears that the spam filter doesn't click on all the links but just one. The click is also registering in the activity log before the "delivered email" is registered. So the one-pixel image link won't work for my case. However, I am noticing that none of these links lead to a "visit page" activity (and it should). I will try to use that filter for lead scoring. Please keep us posted if you uncover additional information about this.</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 01:41:45 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218953#M161242Venus_Wills2016-01-26T01:41:45ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218954#M161243
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>I am noticing that none of these links lead to a "visit page" activity (and it should).</P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>... as mentioned in the other thread, you shouldn't expect a <EM>VWP </EM>activity just because you saw the <EM>Clicked Email.&nbsp; </EM>The anti-spam technology in use isn't going to download all libraries and do JS logging (in fact it would be a pretty good DoS attack against such services if it did).&nbsp; </P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 01:56:52 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218954#M161243SanfordWhiteman2016-01-26T01:56:52ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218955#M161244
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>That is an important distinction to point out. I'm only looking at clicks that should result in a webpage visit (i.e., clicked link that contains armor.com should lead to a webpage visit containing armor.com). I checked the activity of a "normal" lead and the email click does lead to a webpage visit. At this point, I'm just trying to prevent these leads from scoring up from bot clicks.</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 02:12:05 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218955#M161244Venus_Wills2016-01-26T02:12:05ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218956#M161245
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Yes, it would be an acceptable approach for links that result in <EM>​VWP </EM>​activities in normal operation.</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 02:55:40 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218956#M161245SanfordWhiteman2016-01-26T02:55:40ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218957#M161246
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>We just ran into this same issue today. After reading through Matt's response, not exactly sure what our next step should be. Lots of good info though!</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 16:11:28 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218957#M161246Chris_Saporito2016-01-26T16:11:28ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218958#M161247
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Matt gives a lot of great advice here, but I did want to just add as a footnote/call to action for anyone else annoyed by the current situation: I've been talking to a few different filtering companies about adding some unique, filter service-only string to their UA when checking links (they normally spoof specifically as IE/Win7) in order to correctly differentiate human vs. machine clicks. The problem affects more than marketing automation platforms; I find myself continually explaining this to transactional email provider users, for instance.</P><P></P><P>I'd highly encourage people to go bother Cloudmark/Symantec/Barracuda as well so I don't seem like a lone weird geek on this point.</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 16:51:57 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218958#M161247Courtney_Grimes2016-01-26T16:51:57ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218959#M161248
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>filter service-only string to their UA when checking links </P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Doesn't make sense though.&nbsp; That would make their service worthless because it's supposed to be prechecking for hostile sites.&nbsp; All a site would need to do is UA sniff and return a non-malicious payload.&nbsp; They need more randomness, not less (my experience is it isn't the same UA at all).</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 17:05:19 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218959#M161248SanfordWhiteman2016-01-26T17:05:19ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218960#M161249
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>I think <A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/104569">Venus Wills</A>​ is on to something very promising here. If it can be established that the anti-spam logic never prefetches deep/long enough to log the Munchkin Visit Web Page activity -- and there have to be limits to how much it will fetch/redirect/render or it's vulnerable to an attack comparable to the old "ZIP of death" attack against anti-virus software -- if it doesn't go that deep then all we need to do is make sure the tracking server depends on some async JS calls to complete before logging the Click Link.</P><P></P><P>I can write a simple tracking server wrapper to do this, provided you all can verify that all (or a commanding share) of the link-prefetching approaches don't get around to running Munchkin.</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 22:08:10 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218960#M161249SanfordWhiteman2016-01-26T22:08:10ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218961#M161250
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>BTW tests just now with our own MessageLabs account suggests my idea above holds real promise. </P><P></P><P>The scanner didn't even attempt to <EM>download</EM> a simple (and in fact nonexistent) script on my test page.&nbsp; If that holds for other services all we need is a JS shim in-between the scanner and the tracking server and there will never be false clicks.</P><P></P><P>I must say if these jokers don't even replay a JS redirect they're pretty much vaporware.&nbsp; But so be it.</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 27 Jan 2016 06:12:41 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218961#M161250SanfordWhiteman2016-01-27T06:12:41ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218962#M161251
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Hi Sanford, what does this mean for the JS-impaired? Do you think the simple logic of using a Smart List to to filter out the clicks that should result in a webpage visit but did not will work?</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 27 Jan 2016 22:47:56 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218962#M161251Venus_Wills2016-01-27T22:47:56ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218963#M161252
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>You wouldn't need to write any JS at all -- you'd just need to point your tracking domain to a smarter server that knows how to deal with these non-human clicks.&nbsp; The rest is taken care of automatically.</P><P></P><P>I think your method might be okay in controlled environments (i.e. where you never use a direct download link to a PDF and never link to pages that don't run Munchkin) but even there would be really hard to maintain.&nbsp; It would basically mean that <EM>Clicked Email </EM>activities themselves are pretty useless as used in reports.&nbsp; You also can't trigger on "<EM>Clicked Link in Email </EM>that is not followed in the future by a <EM>Visit Web Page</EM>" because the chronology is backward.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 00:54:45 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218963#M161252SanfordWhiteman2016-01-28T00:54:45ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218964#M161253
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P><A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/72612">Courtney Grimes</A>​ <A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/60814">Matt Roberts</A>​ <A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/36930">Dan Stevens</A>​ (and anyone else) if you can confirm what Venus discovered please do so I can get the workaround out... this stuff is difficult to test independently as I eventually got blacklisted by MessageLabs -- and whitelisting skips the test entirely. Of course I have other addresses to test with but more input is better.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 08:44:09 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218964#M161253SanfordWhiteman2016-01-28T08:44:09ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218965#M161254
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>I'd be happy to provide insight here.&nbsp; Can you just summarize what the specific ask is?</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 17:21:39 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218965#M161254Dan_Stevens_2016-01-28T17:21:39ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218966#M161255
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>This is actually a pretty ingenious concept, but I'm probably going to have to wait a little bit in terms of testing (don't have any nurtures doing numbers large enough for a sample size right now and none of my clients have a blast going in the next few days.) I'll definitely try this and report back in the next week or two, though.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:56:03 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218966#M161255Courtney_Grimes2016-01-28T18:56:03ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218967#M161256
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>We need to establish that the link-prefetching scanners don't execute JS.&nbsp; </P><P></P><P>So: do you see a pattern of <EM>Clicked Email </EM>activities that would usually be followed by a <EM>Visit Web Page </EM>activity (that is, the link in the email goes to a page that runs Munchkin) but <EM>don't</EM> have a subsequent <EM>Visit Web Page?</EM></P><P></P><P>I was able to observe this with MessageLabs (Symantec).</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 21:07:30 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218967#M161256SanfordWhiteman2016-01-28T21:07:30ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218968#M161257
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>OK!</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 21:07:43 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218968#M161257SanfordWhiteman2016-01-28T21:07:43ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218969#M161258
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>While I don't have a high volume of examples, I've observed this behavior in my instance. In fact, we have some "hand raise" links that say click here to be contacted and I added a visited webage constraint to the smart campaign that triggers the alert to our reps. Before adding the constraint, I had reps complaining that some people they were calling stated they never clicked the link despite the click being recorded in their activity log.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 21:29:43 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218969#M161258Conor_Fitzpatri2016-01-28T21:29:43ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218970#M161259
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>That supports the concept. Thanks!&nbsp; </P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 23:49:26 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218970#M161259SanfordWhiteman2016-01-28T23:49:26ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218971#M161260
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Hi Venus. How did you actually set up your scoring for clicks in Marketo? I was looking to add a filter that contains "web activity" is not empty. </P></BODY></HTML>Mon, 01 Feb 2016 14:57:32 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218971#M161260Amanda_Thomas62016-02-01T14:57:32ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218972#M161261
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Well, posted too soon. I found "Visited Web Page". </P></BODY></HTML>Mon, 01 Feb 2016 15:00:04 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218972#M161261Amanda_Thomas62016-02-01T15:00:04ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218973#M161262
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Remember, if you're going to use this method, all of your links have to be <EM>expected </EM>to leave <EM>Visited Web Page </EM>tracks.&nbsp; Direct PDF links, for example, do not.</P></BODY></HTML>Mon, 01 Feb 2016 19:02:12 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218973#M161262SanfordWhiteman2016-02-01T19:02:12ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218974#M161263
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Have a lot going on at present - it will take me some time to get around to this, likely not for another month or so. But I'll try to look at this when I can.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:41:29 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218974#M161263Anonymous2016-02-04T20:41:29ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218975#M161264
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Cool, I know everyone's busy... just need enough people to be interested because frankly I can't get my own team worked up about this (though they should be).</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:59 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218975#M161264SanfordWhiteman2016-02-04T20:48:59ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218976#M161265
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Venus - we (meaning <A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/39563">Becky Miner</A>​, our Marketo Queen, and myself - a humble court jester) have found that, many times, the suspected "bot" clicks are checking the first link in the entire email. So we've put our one-pixel link at the very front of the email, before any other links...we've caught a few flies in the trap so far.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 04 Feb 2016 21:00:30 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218976#M161265Anonymous2016-02-04T21:00:30ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218977#M161266
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Hi Amanda, sorry I just saw this. It sounds like you found the solution. I have mine set up as below:</P><P></P><P>Trigger: Visited Web Page contains "abc.com"</P><P>Clicked link contains "abc.com" in last 5 minutes</P><P></P><P>I've done a few spot checks, and the flow appears to be working properly. </P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 04 Feb 2016 21:02:48 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218977#M161266Venus_Wills2016-02-04T21:02:48ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218978#M161267
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>I'd be happy to reach out to Barracuda - that's the culprit for us about 90% of the time. What do I need to do/say?</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 10 Feb 2016 22:41:38 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218978#M161267Beth_Rotach2016-02-10T22:41:38ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218979#M161268
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>"Please don't protect your clients against phishing and malware attacks"? <IMG src="https://nation.marketo.com/legacyfs/online/emoticons/confused.png" /></P><P></P><P>Seriously, I don't see why any anti-spam software that offers this functionality in the first place would offer to turn it off.&nbsp; It's obviously by design that it follows links, even if it seems like a fiasco from an analytics standpoint. It might also be better to <EM>not </EM>contact them because according to the research here, there <EM>is</EM> a way of avoiding spurious clicks, but they could break that if they wanted to (by starting to follow JS redirects).</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 10 Feb 2016 23:01:21 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218979#M161268SanfordWhiteman2016-02-10T23:01:21ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218980#M161269
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>I've found a flaw in my Smart List. It's not capturing all leads who clicked and then visited a web page. I've spot checked several leads (half that triggered correctly and half that didn't) and cannot find any difference between the two sets...</P><P></P><P>I think I will have to rely solely on the Visited Web Page trigger and another filter like Member of a Program or Was Delivered Email.</P><P></P><P>It's frustrating that the Click Link in Email activity is getting very unreliable as an indicator of intent.</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 16 Feb 2016 17:00:56 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218980#M161269Venus_Wills2016-02-16T17:00:56ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218981#M161270
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Hi Venus,</P><P></P><P>I set my smart list up in the opposite manner and it so far has seemed to catch everyone I've spot checked:</P><P></P><P>Trigger: Clicks link in email is "abc.com"</P><P>Visited webpage is "abc.com" in timeframe Today</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:38:02 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218981#M161270Conor_Fitzpatri2016-02-16T21:38:02ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218982#M161271
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Thanks, Conor. I can't believe I didn't think to try that!</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 17 Feb 2016 19:34:53 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218982#M161271Venus_Wills2016-02-17T19:34:53ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218983#M161272
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>One of my big concerns is that we're passing this activity into SFDC, which our inside reps are using to follow up on what seemingly look like responses to email campaigns. Have others resulted to just disabling that type of activity from being passed to SFDC?</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 24 Feb 2016 17:22:14 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218983#M161272Anonymous2016-02-24T17:22:14ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218984#M161273
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>One of my big concerns is that we're passing this activity into SFDC, which our inside reps are using to follow up on what seemingly look like responses to email campaigns. Have others resulted to just disabling that type of activity from being passed to SFDC?</P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>If you mean replicating all activities (well, one per lead per activity type per day, technically), yes, you would have to turn that off if you want to perform any filtering.&nbsp; If you create a Smart Campaign that seems to work, like the one Conor proposes above, you can use that to create SFDC tasks and/or Interesting Moments that correspond to the filtered activities/sequences of activities.</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 24 Feb 2016 19:03:03 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218984#M161273SanfordWhiteman2016-02-24T19:03:03ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218985#M161274
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Since clicking on "Today" in the calendar that pops up will insert today's date, will this date dynamically adjust each day.&nbsp; And what about time zones.&nbsp; Let's say someone in China clicks on a link in an email that's received a day prior (in our Marketo local time zone), will this adjust for the lead's time zone?</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 25 Feb 2016 16:51:06 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218985#M161274Dan_Stevens_2016-02-25T16:51:06ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218986#M161275
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Hi Dan,</P><P></P><P>The timeframe option is dynamic - you don't actually have a calendar pop-up and choose a specific date. Instead, it's actually the word, "Today", and acts like a token to pull in today's date. You bring up a very good point about timezones, but it is based off of the time the activity was logged in your instance of Marketo.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 25 Feb 2016 17:40:52 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218986#M161275Conor_Fitzpatri2016-02-25T17:40:52ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218987#M161276
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>That's what I thought, Conor.&nbsp; But when I entered "Today" in the field, Marketo indicated it was invalid with a red squiggly:</P><P></P><P><span class="lia-inline-image-display-wrapper" image-alt="pastedImage_0.png"><img src="https://nation.marketo.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/8028iF3BAFE211463F0A2/image-size/large?v=1.0&amp;px=999" title="pastedImage_0.png" alt="pastedImage_0.png" /></span></P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 25 Feb 2016 18:05:38 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218987#M161276Dan_Stevens_2016-02-25T18:05:38ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218988#M161277
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Hi Dan,</P><P></P><P>Change "is" to "in time frame" and you will have the option to select today.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 25 Feb 2016 18:11:14 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218988#M161277Conor_Fitzpatri2016-02-25T18:11:14ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218989#M161278
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Ah great - thanks for catching this Conor!</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 25 Feb 2016 18:14:54 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218989#M161278Dan_Stevens_2016-02-25T18:14:54ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218990#M161279
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Marketo support suggested we trigger off of Opens Email and Clicks Link in Email, but the issue we're seeing is that this is still generating false positives, because those if a company has the filter, they're still going to register a click. So if they even just open an email, it looks like they've satisfied both requirements. In many cases, the clicks are even logging far ahead of the time when someone opens. </P><P></P><P>Has anyone worked out a way to tell Marketo that the Email has to open BEFORE the click?</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 26 Feb 2016 00:28:43 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218990#M161279Anonymous2016-02-26T00:28:43ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218991#M161280
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>It's kind of reckless to assume a deep scanner won't download images (not to say they all do, but there's no reason for them not to).</P><P>But if you want to consider the <EM>Open</EM> to be human, then filter your <EM>Click</EM> triggers by a previous <EM>Open</EM>.</P><P></P><P>Still, I'd say this is an even more fragile variant of the <EM>Visit Web Page </EM>filter above, which isn't fully satisfactory.</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 26 Feb 2016 02:56:09 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218991#M161280SanfordWhiteman2016-02-26T02:56:09ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218992#M161281
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Just a quick note - we've been emailing pretty aggressively with Marketo support regarding this issue. We also found out that MANY other ESPs provide this "click filtering" as part of their service because it happens so often to folks. We recently spoke with about 8-10 other ESPs that automatically (and very easily) filter these clicks for their clients. Apparently the ESP can easily filter clicks by IP/known barracuda IPs and code. Marketo deliverability team assured that their are now working with the product side to try to implement this ASAP, especially because so many people are asking about it - KEEP ASKING! <IMG src="https://nation.marketo.com/legacyfs/online/emoticons/happy.png" /></P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 03 Mar 2016 18:57:47 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218992#M161281Beth_Rotach2016-03-03T18:57:47ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218993#M161282
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>Apparently the ESP can easily filter clicks by IP/known barracuda IPs and code. </P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Nope, they cannot (and are not) doing it this way. It's a preposterous claim, and any ESP that claims to reliably filter automated clicks this way is lying.</P><P></P><P>Rather, they are using a mechanism that is closer to what I have described in this thread and elsewhere.&nbsp; It is possible for Marketo to attempt the same and achieve a high degree of coverage.&nbsp; But to the degree that it works, it is because of the defensive coding used by the mail scanner (to prevent an amplification attack against the scanner itself) and not because of any special brilliance or detective work by the ESP. </P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 04 Mar 2016 02:58:51 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218993#M161282SanfordWhiteman2016-03-04T02:58:51ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218994#M161283
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>I stumbled on a slightly different version of this solution last week, using a click trigger and then a wait and remove from flow step based on if the lead visited the page.</P><P></P><P>The only problem, though, is that today I've been looking through the leads that were removed from the flow, and some look like legitimate users - they clicked on the link several minutes after the email delivered, and registered an open, but never visited the web page.</P><P></P><P>I don't think the munchkin tracking code works 100% of the time. It would be best to just not count clicks either from before delivery, or within seconds of delivery.</P><P></P><P>Edit: Just set up an idea for this, if anyone wants to up-vote it: <A __default_attr="7992" __jive_macro_name="idea" class="jive_macro_idea jive_macro" data-orig-content="Don't count email clicks that occur before or a few seconds after email delivery" href="https://nation.marketo.com/"></A> </P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 25 Mar 2016 16:28:01 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218994#M161283Jose_Rafael_Par2016-03-25T16:28:01ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218995#M161284
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>The solution is as I described above and elsewhere.&nbsp; Anything that involves assumptions like "no one ever opens emails 30 seconds after they get them" isn't gonna work.</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 25 Mar 2016 17:27:53 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218995#M161284SanfordWhiteman2016-03-25T17:27:53ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218996#M161285
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>OK, here's a situation I was presented with this morning:</P><P>We use Marketo for our Contact Us page and we have workflows that fire off alerts. One of the alerts has two links: I've Handled This, or I Need to Re-Route This. There is a follow up workflow that is triggered on the I've Handled This click.&nbsp; One of my colleagues asked for help because a click is firing off the follow-up workflow 4 times.</P><P></P><P>One of the logs I looked at shows the initial alert delivered Sunday night.&nbsp; On Monday morning, the alert was clicked at 10:34am and there was a corresponding VWP.&nbsp; Then, also at 10:34 I see two more Clicks Link and only one VWP.</P><P></P><P>My first thought is that I have a double-clicker. I created a lead for myself following the process.&nbsp; I was very slow about waiting to click on the link the first time. I did, it registered one click, one VWP, then nothing more. I put in a filter for Not Clicks Link In Email in Past 1 minute to see if that would help.&nbsp; Then, about 5 minutes after my first click I double clicked. It registered two clicks and two VWPs.</P><P></P><P>A minute later, it registered 3 clicks and 1 VWP. These were not by me or anyone else.</P><P></P><P>Now, it's work noting that we have a URLDefensePoint system in place. All links in emails are re-coded by the server with DefensePoint to check. I'm thinking that it's testing the link for us to see what happens prior to allowing the browser to go to the link.</P><P></P><P>Thoughts?</P><P></P><P><A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/64035">Sanford Whiteman</A>​</P></BODY></HTML>Mon, 04 Apr 2016 16:28:24 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218996#M161285Robb_Barrett2016-04-04T16:28:24ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218997#M161286
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>Now, it's work noting that we have a URLDefensePoint system in place. All links in emails are re-coded by the server with DefensePoint to check. I'm thinking that it's testing the link for us to see what happens prior to allowing the browser to go to the link.</P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I think <A href="http://support.proofpointessentials.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/170/34/url-defense-faqs">you're correct</A>.</P><P></P><P>And this is a case where, unlike inbound scanners I know of, the outbound/opt-in service can afford to perform deep scanning because they only see a subset of links. That is, they are actually following the JS redirect, so they generate a <EM>Visit Web Page </EM>as well as a click. (Inbound scanners can't afford to do this because from a defensive programming standpoint they could tie up their own resources.)</P></BODY></HTML>Mon, 04 Apr 2016 19:20:59 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218997#M161286SanfordWhiteman2016-04-04T19:20:59ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218998#M161287
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>This is the same thing I'm seeing on spam traps too. You get a flurry of clicks and few VWPs.</P></BODY></HTML>Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:04:07 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218998#M161287Robb_Barrett2016-04-04T20:04:07ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218999#M161288
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Thanks to <A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/21855">Kiersti Esparza</A>​, Manager of Privacy/Deliverability at Marketo, who has just posted a community article on this topic.&nbsp; <A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migration-blogpost/1584">Understanding a Spike in Click Activity</A></P><P></P><P>Cheers!</P><P>Carmi</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 06 Apr 2016 20:07:20 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/218999#M161288Carmi_Lopez-Jo12016-04-06T20:07:20ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219000#M161289
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P><A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/51429">Conor Fitzpatrick</A>​ (and others who have participated in this thread), we had to remove this filter from our campaigns.&nbsp; We were finding in many instances, Marketo wasn't logging the "visited web page" activity upwards of 5 minutes after the click link activity.&nbsp; Therefore, the trigger campaigns weren't triggering with this filter in place.&nbsp; Thought we had this one solved.</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 20 Apr 2016 19:25:10 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219000#M161289Dan_Stevens_2016-04-20T19:25:10ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219001#M161290
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Well that's a huge bummer. I wonder if it has to do with the munchkin 2.0 updates? I haven't tested it post-release, but I will now to see if we get a different result.</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 20 Apr 2016 21:04:16 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219001#M161290Conor_Fitzpatri2016-04-20T21:04:16ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219002#M161291
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>The thing is, Munchkin v2 has yet to be rolled out to anyone yet.&nbsp; There was a minor change made today, but I doubt that's affecting this.</P><P></P><P><span class="lia-inline-image-display-wrapper" image-alt="pastedImage_0.png"><img src="https://nation.marketo.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/11693i45DC48B10BD7C0A2/image-size/large?v=1.0&amp;px=999" title="pastedImage_0.png" alt="pastedImage_0.png" /></span></P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 20 Apr 2016 21:33:07 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219002#M161291Dan_Stevens_2016-04-20T21:33:07ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219003#M161292
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Hmmm... Do you think it has anything to do with your visit volume? Our web traffic volume is quite low right now as we're in the process of growing our content strategy.</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:49:10 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219003#M161292Conor_Fitzpatri2016-04-22T16:49:10ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219004#M161293
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>I provided a couple of workarounds for this issue on my discussion topic: <A href="https://nation.marketo.com/message/133529">Email was clicked before it was delivered? It's a link scanner</A> </P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 15 Jun 2016 19:37:06 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219004#M161293Devraj_Grewal2016-06-15T19:37:06ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219005#M161294
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P><A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migration-blogpost/1747">Spam spam spam eggs spam spam spam</A> </P><P></P><P>Here's something I put together on how to find link scanners / Spam traps.</P></BODY></HTML>Mon, 20 Jun 2016 17:54:59 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219005#M161294Robb_Barrett2016-06-20T17:54:59ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219006#M161295
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Hi Matt,</P><P>Thanks for the solution! I wasn't able to find the url link for the 1 pixel picture. Is there a specific link that needs to be added or can it be any link we set?</P><P></P><P>Thanks,<BR />Julia</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 28 Dec 2016 23:33:18 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219006#M161295Anonymous2016-12-28T23:33:18ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219007#M161296
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P><A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/60814">Matt Roberts</A>​ question above for you <IMG src="https://nation.marketo.com/legacyfs/online/emoticons/happy.png" /></P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 28 Dec 2016 23:38:32 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219007#M161296Anonymous2016-12-28T23:38:32ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219008#M161297
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Choose any link you want. The URL doesn't even have to exist for Marketo to track the click. It just has to be identifiable.</P><P></P><P>However, this won't actually solve the issue. All it means is that other click events <EM>directly contiguous to the "lure" click</EM> are spurious. A click one minute later is probably the human lead her/himself.&nbsp; Marketo doesn't have enough granularity for this approach to work (if you pull all activity data out into your own DB, you can action it more successfully, but that is not on the table for most users).</P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 28 Dec 2016 23:44:06 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219008#M161297SanfordWhiteman2016-12-28T23:44:06ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219009#M161298
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Do you need to add the link in the text version? </P><P>Another thing I noticed is that the bot clicks don't have any inferred information on the lead. Anyone else notice that?</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:41:46 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219009#M161298Anonymous2016-12-29T16:41:46ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219010#M161299
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>Do you need to add the link in the text version? </P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>No, that won't increase accuracy.</P><P></P><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>Another thing I noticed is that the bot clicks don't have any inferred information on the lead. Anyone else notice that?</P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>This isn't actually because they're automated clicks per se. It's because they don't run Munchkin. In fact, you'd see the same behavior if you add a direct link to a PDF (or other asset other than a web page) in an email. Direct links are not best practice for this reason.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 29 Dec 2016 20:51:51 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219010#M161299SanfordWhiteman2016-12-29T20:51:51ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219011#M161300
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P><A href="https://nation.marketo.com/migrated-users/64035">Sanford Whiteman</A>​ - just had a thought I'd like to bounce off of you:</P><P></P><P>Somewhere near the bottom, create a link with style="display: none;" so no one would see it or find it without reading the code. This would mean any click on the link or visit to the page would be a machine. </P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 29 Dec 2016 22:58:44 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219011#M161300Robb_Barrett2016-12-29T22:58:44ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219012#M161301
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>That's a really cool idea! I thought the link has to be on top of the page though? <BR />I can give it a try and see what the result's like. </P><P></P><P>Thanks!</P><P>Julia</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 29 Dec 2016 23:03:20 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219012#M161301Anonymous2016-12-29T23:03:20ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219013#M161302
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Yeah, upon second thought it should be at the top so it's the first thing clicked or one of the First. </P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 29 Dec 2016 23:06:04 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219013#M161302Robb_Barrett2016-12-29T23:06:04ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219014#M161303
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Awesome! Thank you so much!</P><P><BR />Julia</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 29 Dec 2016 23:31:27 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219014#M161303Anonymous2016-12-29T23:31:27ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219015#M161304
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Unfortunately, that'll have the same problem as every similar approach, such as an &lt;A&gt; wrapping a 1x1 image or an &lt;A&gt; with no contents at all --&nbsp; or for that matter an &lt;A&gt; that says, "Don't click this under any circumstances, it's a virus."</P><P></P><P>Yes, if it's the first link clicked by a mail scanner (it won't necessarily be, since they can click in any order) then a click within the next, say, 10 seconds is probably (again, not necessarily) that same scanner. </P><P></P><P>But Marketo's granularity (Filter: <EM>Not Clicked Link in Email, </EM>Link: {your-scanner-lure-URL}, Date: In past 10 seconds) won't catch this.</P><P></P><P>The problem has never been building a link that could only be clicked by a non-human. It's how to <EM>action</EM> that activity in the context of other activities. Like I say every time... until Marketo actually changes their tracking logic so that closely contiguous activities for the same lead are scanned <EM>as a batch </EM>before committing them to the activity database, there's no way to situate the probably-automated traffic in context.</P><P></P><P>And bear in mind that anything Marketo might try to do, an attacker hosting malware can do as well (read: if it looks like a mail scanner, send back innocent results). So even though link scanning is half-measure anyway, it is not supposed to be trivially avoidable, since the bad actors have anything but trivial skillz.</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 30 Dec 2016 01:02:07 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219015#M161304SanfordWhiteman2016-12-30T01:02:07ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219016#M161305
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>We host our own 1x1 pixel image on ourselves as part of our content - but Sanford is right, it doesn't matter what URL / image you use. You just need to embed it within the email somewhere unobtrusive so that human beings won't notice it and wouldn't think to click on it. The proper term for this sort of thing is a "web beacon."</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 03 Jan 2017 14:06:48 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219016#M161305Anonymous2017-01-03T14:06:48ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219017#M161306
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>We used this 'web beacon' approach on an email this morning and beacon helped identify about 80% of the bot clicks. A few still came through from 2 companies for clicking a different link, but were easily identifiable. A sort-of workaround until Marketo addresses the bigger issue. </P></BODY></HTML>Wed, 04 Jan 2017 22:03:52 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219017#M161306Anonymous2017-01-04T22:03:52ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219018#M161307
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>Just a quick note - we've been emailing pretty aggressively with Marketo support regarding this issue. We also found out that MANY other ESPs provide this "click filtering" as part of their service because it happens so often to folks. We recently spoke with about 8-10 other ESPs that automatically (and very easily) filter these clicks for their clients. <STRONG>Marketo deliverability team assured that their are now working with the product side to try to implement this ASAP</STRONG>, especially because so many people are asking about it - KEEP ASKING!</P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>It's been about 16 months since the post was made.&nbsp; Can anyone from the Marketo product team chime in and let us know if an enhancement to more accurately track valid email clicks?</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 20 Jul 2017 15:24:16 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219018#M161307Dan_Stevens_2017-07-20T15:24:16ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219019#M161308
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Not an official person, but if you see a "Clicks Link" without a "Visits Web Page" you've got yourself a spambot.</P></BODY></HTML>Thu, 20 Jul 2017 18:37:00 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219019#M161308Robb_Barrett2017-07-20T18:37:00ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219020#M161309
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>(Unless you're offering direct download links.)</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 21 Jul 2017 04:07:19 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219020#M161309SanfordWhiteman2017-07-21T04:07:19ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219021#M161310
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>Which you should always try to avoid - and instead, use this fantastic technique: <A href="http://blog.teknkl.com/stop-using-direct-download-links-unless-you-like-losing-tracking/" title="http://blog.teknkl.com/stop-using-direct-download-links-unless-you-like-losing-tracking/">http://blog.teknkl.com/stop-using-direct-download-links-unless-you-like-losing-tracking/</A> </P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 21 Jul 2017 12:19:16 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219021#M161310Dan_Stevens_2017-07-21T12:19:16ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219022#M161311
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>So we have our CTA buttons link out to a Marketo hosted landing page - is it safe to say the <EM><STRONG>"IF clicks link: 'MKTO landing page'" + "Visited web page: 'MKTO landing page'"</STRONG></EM> combination will catch 100% of the human clicks and exclude the bots? </P><P></P><P>I ran a test during our last email and the exact flow I had set up is:</P><P><STRONG>TRIGGER:</STRONG> 'Clicks Link in email; link is: pages.xyz.com....' <STRONG>FLOW</STRONG>: 'Wait 5 minutes, Request Campaign' &gt; </P><P><STRONG>CAMPAIGN IS REQUESTED:</STRONG> Marketo Flow action' <STRONG>VISITED WEB PAGE</STRONG> is pages.xyz.com &gt; Send Alert</P><P></P><P>Looking at the statistic we had 47 run through this campaign and 217 log a click on that link with no web page visit. It is hard to believe that we had 217 bot clicks...this leads me to believe the Marketo tracking on the landing page is not accurate?</P><P></P><P>I apologize if I have repeated any issues already in the comments, I am trying to follow all of the threads on this topic.</P><P></P><P>Thanks, </P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:04:32 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219022#M161311Benjamin_Ortiz12017-09-26T20:04:32ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219023#M161312
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD><P>So we have our CTA buttons link out to a Marketo hosted landing page - is it safe to say the <EM><STRONG>"IF clicks link: 'MKTO landing page'" + "Visited web page: 'MKTO landing page'"</STRONG></EM> combination will catch 100% of the human clicks and exclude the bots? </P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>No, because mail scanners that are most accurate/robust will load the next page with JS enabled.</P><P></P><P>(If they didn't do this, how would they know if the page would be redirected to a phishing site?)</P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:25:32 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219023#M161312SanfordWhiteman2017-09-26T20:25:32ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219024#M161313
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>I see what you're saying - I guess my question should be, is using the above filter/trigger combo the most reliable solution known today to attempt to filter out bot clicks? and are there any known issues with tracking marketo hosted pages where I would miss out on real clicks by using this filter/trigger combo? </P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:44:11 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219024#M161313Benjamin_Ortiz12017-09-26T20:44:11ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219025#M161314
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>If you only use this for links that run Munchkin (i.e. direct binary downloads won't have a <EM>Visited Web Page</EM>) then you will only miss people who use tracking protection plugins/features.</P><P></P><P>I don't consider there to be any reliable detection method for mail scanner clicks, for good reason. <IMG src="https://nation.marketo.com/legacyfs/online/emoticons/happy.png" /></P></BODY></HTML>Tue, 26 Sep 2017 21:07:36 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219025#M161314SanfordWhiteman2017-09-26T21:07:36ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219026#M161315
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>We place utm tags in all of our emails, so we use this:</P><P></P><P><STRONG>Smart List:</STRONG></P><P>Visited Web Page Trigger: any</P><P>Querystring contains: [unique utm tags minus the question mark at the beginning]</P><P></P><P><STRONG>Flow:</STRONG></P><P>Change program status to clicked</P><P></P><P>We've been using this for over a year now and I have yet to see a fake click with this method. </P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 27 Apr 2018 20:25:59 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219026#M161315Lucho_Soto2018-04-27T20:25:59ZRe: Spam filters registering clicks?https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219027#M161316
<HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE border="1"><TBODY><TR><TD>We've been using this for over a year now and I have yet to see a fake click with this method. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE><P>You would have no way of knowing if you had. That's the idea.</P></BODY></HTML>Fri, 27 Apr 2018 21:09:11 GMThttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Discussions/Spam-filters-registering-clicks/m-p/219027#M161316SanfordWhiteman2018-04-27T21:09:11Z